Posted
by
timothyon Tuesday December 17, 2013 @11:51AM
from the drones-are-the-replacement dept.

SonicSpike writes "2013 may be a turning point for red-light cameras across the United States. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), a non-profit largely funded by auto insurance companies, this year is the first time in nearly two decades that the number of American cities with red-light cameras has fallen — the systems were installed in 509 communities as of November 2013. While a single-year drop may not ultimately mean much, legislators across the country are increasingly agitated about the cameras. Bills are also pending in Florida and Ohio that would ban the devices entirely. A state representative in Iowa has also twice introduced legislation to ban RLCs (he was not successful). Part of this backlash has to do with the (sometimes accurate) perception that RLCs are a moneymaking scheme, pure and simple."

DOT studies a while back showed that increasing yellow light time by a second or so would reduce red-light accidents. However, RLC contracts often come with a stipulation that yellow light time is reduced, by at least a half second or more, to increase revenues. These things need to go, the sooner the better.

Yeah, pics or that didn't happen. It would be discoverable and too easy of a target for a lawsuit. TFA states that the local government determined the timings and the Good Cop who was profiled would never, ever do anything so nefarious as to decrease the yellow light timing. But, of course, there are lots of different people in a government, some more persuadable than others.

The one factoid that always pisses me off in this discussion is that a brief double red cuts down on T-bone accidents significantly

In my experience, they don't have to.When I was in Chicago, the yellows didn't have to be shortened for me to see someone getting flashed almost every day.In France, they used to put a big sign on the highway "watch out, radar coming", and they still pulled in over $100M every year. That must not have been enough, they are removing the signs, and putting another radar in front of some to warn you that you're going too fast and about to get caught. Wanna bet if the revenue if going to drop?

So 2 seconds for yellow. Then 1 second for green. Is that enough to actually get across the intersection? That depends on the intersection and the car.

Min length green (say 2-3 cars from a stop and, cars that do a 15 second 1/4 mile). Then enough time for 1-2 cars to make it thru the light on yellow at full speed. Then red in all directions for at least 1-2 seconds.

Yeah, I've seen plenty of intersections where, once the light turns yellow, there is not enough time to cross before it turns red while going the posted speed limit. Every intersection is different and should have its own timing based on speed limit, length, and other factors.

I think red-light cameras have a negative connotation _because_ they make money and that is unfortunate.
Most every successful business makes money so if you want to contract out police work such as traffic speed enforcement, that contractor _has_ to make money.
If you want to keep the job in-house so-to-speak, well the government doesn't have to make money but then everybody whines about how expensive it is to maintain this wonderful society we have _because_ of government. They think it costs too much because all they look at is the expense of taxes, not benefit of courts, police, and laws that form a well-regulated market safe for businesses and customers.
Then all it takes is enough wealthy citizens and politicians getting actual tickets they can't talk or bribe their way out of and traffic enforcement gets to stop.

We either want laws or we don't. If you think less government is best, move to Somalia.We have yet to analyze our systems correctly (i.e. scientifically instead of politically).

You must not live in the same US that I live in. I've worked with city police and I constantly heard about decisions between buying a new patrol car or hiring another officer. I know many departments that would love to have more money to spend on people/tools.

We don't want to contract out police work. Ever. Why even bother having a government if you're going to contract out its essential functions?

The profit motive should never come anywhere near law enforcement. The moment anyone in government starts thinking of profit instead of public service is the moment tyranny begins. The only thing that should guide a police department is how they can best serve their community, not how they can best increase their budget.

I argue that money paid for fines should be incinerated. Seriously. Government, whether it's city hall, the local police, the statehouse, or the national government, should never, ever have a financial gain when its citizens commit crimes. Ever. Scratch that; nobody, not government, not charities, not schools, nobody, should have a financial interest in citizens committing crimes. Make crime a source of income, and suddenly you find that whomever benefits from fines thinks a lot of things should be crimes.

Crime is bad (well, real crime like murder, rape and robbery). Nobody should benefit from it.

Restitution is different; that money should go to making the victim whole (not rich, whole), as much as possible.

I agree there shouldn't be *profit*, though some degree of fines *could* be reasonable; consider the extra work that may be created by repeat offenders. That income could be supplanted by raising taxes, but why should the good citizens pay for the actions of a few bad ones?
OTOH, that said, the fines actually charged for most minor offenses are totally incommensurate with the infraction, and are, in fact, a money making scheme.

I think red-light cameras have a negative connotation _because_ they make money and that is unfortunate....

I figure they'd not make money if people were not habitually running red lights. Don't want a ticket? Don't run the damn light.

My support for such cameras is conditional that the light timing NOT not be fscked with in order to maximize the potential of someone getting a ticket - I just want those that run the normally timed lights to feel a little pain for being is such a hurry or not leaving early enough for where they want to be.

I'm not convinced the red-light cameras are about enforcing the law. I have 2 major reasons for thinking this:

1. Red-light cameras are sold to governments as non-tax revenue sources. That means the purpose the politicians care about is raising money without dealing with the controversy of raising taxes.

2. The placement of red-light cameras, at least near where I live, correlates not with the locations with the highest violation of red light laws, but with the most politically powerless residents. In other w

If you look at the report Ars Technica discusses, they found that red light cameras at intersections were configured to cover those lanes that would would generate the most revenue but were not necessarily the most dangerous. Furthermore, only 10% of the revenue goes to the city, which means it's definitely a profit center for the company.

People are already rightfully suspicious of government's authority to levy fines and taxes, but we allow it because we know that in principle (if not always or even usually in practice) it's to further the public good. Private companies have no such social responsibility and no reason to not abuse their position to maximize how much money they can extract from the public.

Most every successful business makes money so if you want to contract out police work such as traffic speed enforcement, that contractor _has_ to make money.

Government is not supposed to be in the business of making money from violations of the law regardless of whether it is contracted or not. This is no better than when the police department goes out to meet a revenue quota by issuing speeding tickets at the end of the month. It is unethical and really not much more than state sponsored extortion.

Another thing that should be banned is one- or two-second yellow lights. At every intersection in my area (Chesterfield County, VA) where they've shortened the duration of a yellow light, accidents have spiked dramatically. The original reason for the implementation of such was so that more tickets could be written, but as usual, the PHB's in the county offices didn't acknowledge that costs for police, ambulances and fire-engines to respond to an accident scene would outweigh any additional revenue.

I am reminded of a conversation I had with my daughter when she was about four. We were driving around and came to a stoplight. "What does red mean?" I asked her. "Stop", she replied. "And what does green mean?" I said. "GO!" she yelled. "And what does yellow mean?" She thought for a minute, and said, "Go real fast?"

This gave me some insight into the driving habits of her mother.

I know that red light cameras have sometimes been abused, but what are we supposed to do about the pandemic of red-light-running?

I think you mean the pandemic of badly timed lights that make no allowances for driver error. Since drivers are still humans, they will always make errors. Deciding this is a pandemic is ridiculous. This is human nature. You either design around the fact that people are imperfect, or you design to fail.

Simply increasing the length of yellow lights and delaying green by all of a second or two has been shown to decrease these problems; enforcement has been shown to do little more than bring in money; and ofte

If you need to slam the bakes to stop for a yellow signal you are going waaaay to fast into the intersection anyway.

Nevertheless. We don't have anything resembling those cameras here and quite long yellow light. People still slam the brakes or floor it when the yellow hits.Some stop in the middle of the road blocking everyone too:)

Bottom line: people can't drive so nothing really helps except building roads that make it impossible for vehicles to cross in that way.

You could better alert the drivers of how much time they actually have. For instance, most lights are getting replaced with a grouping of LEDs. Why not alter the pattern of the LEDs to indicate different things? You can't go too crazy, or else it will become distracting, but what about instead of having a solid yellow for the "yellow" light, we have a solid yellow circle in the center, with something akin to a circular progress bar that fills up around the outer edge? I know for me, my decision between "mai

It's only mentioned several hundred times every time this subject comes up on/. Pull your head out and read the other comments sometime. Do pay attention; we're having what we call a "discussion" here.

We have two red light traffic cams in town. I know exactly which two red lights they are. There are big signs that say, "HEY THIS LIGHT HAS A CAMERA." I can understand an out-of-towner possibly not being aware of them, but that means someone was texting instead of looking at the giant sign warning about it as they sped through a red light.

This isn't to say I disagree - the cameras are stupid, and clearly designed to generate revenue rather than increase safety. But we've dealt with them for years and I

Self-financing police departments create a conflict of interest. It pressures the police to go for the crimes that bring them the most money - ones that are easy and cheap to detect, even if they don't actually cause any time - and to resort to dirty tricks to increase the profit further. There's a simple solution to this: Don't give the fines to the departments (or, in this case, contracted companies) who actually enforce the law. Put them into a big state-wide pot, and each year divide it up between departments in the ratio of population (Possibly adjusted for crime rate). Likewise to any proceeds from police auctions and asset seizures.

It is rather funny how people blame everything and everyone for accidents but not themselves.
Yes, of course, RLC are to blame for collisions, not drivers who speed and follow too close! Drive according to rules and RLC won't cause any trouble.
Moreover, it seems to me that accidents caused by RLC would be minor comparing to accidents caused by running red light.
During this type of collision everybody is already braking, speeds are lower. Rear end collision in most cases hits the front of the car which

The point should not be to establish blame, but to reduce the frequency of accidents. Yes, people do stupid things on the road, we all know that. And sometimes you and I are the ones doing those stupid things, unless you are one of the 75% of drivers who think they are above-average drivers. If adding a second to the yellow light time reduces accidents (as it has been demonstrated to do), then increasing the yellow light time should be a seriously considered option!

I like what you wrote. This reminds me of a guy who rear ended my car and blamed me for it. He was 4 - 5 feet behind me going 70km/h before I started braking. Yes I did break suddenly and it was due to a minor lack of attention (I was looking in my rear view mirror trying to understand why he was tailing me).

The other driver argued with the cop about how it was my fault and the cop told him the following: "No matter how hard or what reason the person in front of you stops, it is your responsibility to keep a safe braking distance between you and the car in front". Case closed!

It's entirely possible for RLC's to be set up to improve safety - unfortunately, they often aren't. The goal should be to set up the lights in such a way to maximize safety (i.e. longer yellow, 1-2 second lag between red on one side and green on the other), and have the cameras there to deter people from acting unsafely (i.e. running red lights).

Until they start adjusting the lights and RLC limits to start making money again. Depending on where you live, it can be a for-profit company running the lights settings and handing out the tickets. That's actually the case around here, and they are adding more and more cameras:(

Around here, they're almost all 2 seconds long, and the green generally occurs 2 seconds after red for the other direction. They're quite predictable for the most part (but we don't have RLCs all over the place).

Also, around here, they paint these lines on the ground leading up to an intersection. If you're doing the speed limit, on a dry day, a moderate amount of breaking force will bring you to a safe stop if you begin braking at the beginning of the line. If the light is yellow at or before the beginning of that line, you stop. If the light turns yellow and you're past the line, you generally have enough time to cross the intersection safely.

If you removed the red lights and replaced them with round abouts, you wouldn't need the cameras, lights, or tickets. You'd increase safety, reduce the need for enforcement and increase traffic flow in the effected area. But don't let safety and common sense get in the way of the local police getting a new squad car.

Hah. Denver, CO was nailing people for stopping with their bumpers in the crosswalk. So not running reds, but stopping a few inches too late.

You obviously lack imagination. A crook will always find a way with the money-making schemes. And strangely, there will always be sanctimonious fuckwits defending said crooks as long as the crooks sell their scam as safety.

I would also imagine that, given the weather I see outside my window right now (snowing), they would be an utter disaster here. You try to stop and end up skidding into the intersection, whereupon you get ticketed. Now, of course, some people caught this way will have just been going too fast, but I think more would be caught by the yellow light that is fine for normal conditions being too short for slippery roads.

Bingo. I'm pretty sure RLCs are illegal in South Dakota (not sure where exactly to look, but a google search seems to corroborate the theory), but in my town....there'd be an outcry if they tried to install them, at least during the winter.

I drive a 2003 Mustang. Rear wheel drive, not particularly heavy. Even with 250 extra pounds of icemelt bags in the trunk, it takes me an extra 5-10 seconds of feathering the gas to get moving on icy roads, and I have to start slowing down about 50 feet earlier than wh

This is why people who live around here tend to buy vehicles with AWD. Otherwise, you're not going much of anywhere. The further north you go, the more true this becomes.

AWD doesn't help you stop.

I've slid right into an intersection when I hit the brakes to stop on orange and, only then, discovered that section of road was an ice rink (even though the previous couple of stop lights had been fine). On a normal, ice-free day I'd have stopped with no problem.

I think you mean "there is no obvious construction". There could be an open hole there that someone's about to climb out of, or there could be a hidden tire hazard, or that area could be needed to accommodate moving equipment that can't avoid cars easily. At normal speed, the driver has only a few seconds with a clear view, and likely won't see the abnormal hazards. When slowing down they're forced to pay attention. That's why the barrels are a nice bright orange.

But you wouldn't have an issue with a cop on every using a camera to film everyone who at the intersection, right?

That takes manpower. Disallowing government cameras in public places except those that are on a cop's person or on a cop's car seems like a more sensible policy to me. Mass, automatic surveillance is far different than a guy carrying a camera.

After all, you are in a public space.

Public space or no, it's our money, and they're supposed to be working for us. Hopefully they'll do what we say.

Sure, LEO's absolutely have the ability to identify me, RLC's have zero to do with LEO's, they are private money making machines with the profits split with the municipalities. Basically they're the modern incarnation of the robber barons of the River Rhine, and when they receive too little income the companies pressure the municipalities into reducing the yellow time at the intersection which multiple studies have shown significantly reduces the safety at i

Hmm actually I would say you have the right to only be subject to as much legal scrutiny as is necessary; and not just whatever old arbitary standard somebody makes up. Which is where I would put "no turn on red".

Since turn on red already requires that one stop, and already requires that it only be done when safe to do so, and to yeild to oncoming traffic; there really is no justification to ever have such a sign. Also, since there are much more effective ways to make intersections safe than to quibble over

I know a lot of privacy minded people have a problem with it, but there really are a lot of people around here who ignore very red lights and could cause accidents.

I don't see safety as an excuse for ignoring people's privacy or rights.

I fail to see how this is a privacy issue if you're out driving in public, they're not looking inside your car. What rights, exactly, are being trampled on? This isn't the same as speeding cameras, where calibration, angle, all that stuff can be questioned. This is simply for people who willfully blow through a red light.
Granted, the yellow light should last long enough to give you a chance (I hate Pennsylvania yellow lights, they're like 2 seconds long tops), and there should be some delay, but people w

I fail to see how this is a privacy issue if you're out driving in public

Because there is a different between surveillance equipment and people.

What rights, exactly, are being trampled on?

My rights to not be recorded by random government surveillance equipment. Don't see that as a right? Well, I'd say you're part of the problem, then. I simply don't want to live in a world where government surveillance equipment is installed in random places, even if those places happen to be in public.

This is simply for people who willfully blow through a red light.

Naive; much in the same way as people who say that the NSA is only a threat to terrorists.

It seems me you just want to be able to do whatever you want to do. If you're out in public, then you're out in public, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy except inside the vehicle itself. What's to do stop other citizens from observing or recording you, after all?
A human eye, a camera eye, what's the difference other than the fact that the camera eye is not subject to the fallibility of perception and can be replayed so that a more objective assessment of what actually occurred can be made?

This isn't about safety, didn't you get that message? It's revenue, pure and simple, with safety as the excuse. There are many other ways to make intersections safer, such as improved timing, visibility and lighting, geometry (gentler curves, gentler slopes, wider lanes), lower speed limits, and lowering the amount of traffic. Red light cameras should be a last resort. No one gets away with repeatedly entering intersections when it isn't safe to do so. Most of the time, when the traffic light is red, i

I don't know where you live... but where I live (Colorado), RLC "tickets" can't do anything to your driving record or your insurance. In fact, we just throw them away. The cameras are operated by a private company and collected by another private company; are NOT legitimate citations; and you cannot be issued any kind of warrant whatsoever for failing to do anything whatsoever about them.

The "ticket" you get in the mail has all sorts of threatening legalese on it, but read it carefully, and you'll find it

I've been caught twice on red light cameras. One I was truly guilty of, and that was plain to see on video. The other was because the intersection became a "no turn on red" intersection and I didn't notice the sign because I've driven through the area a million times.

And being a San Diego native, I was pretty damn surprised as well, because San Diego is a big city for law enforcement-bootlicking. Here in San Diego, a red-light camera ticket was around 500 bucks, and surprise, only 100 of those dollars from each ticket went back to the city. The other 400 bucks? You guessed it, a private corporation owned by somebody who knew people in high places.

Because of this city's horrible public transportation and suburban sprawl, you need a car to be able function. So you get a

I once saw a red light camera on Aero Drive off the 15 north with its head beaten off, hanging by a threat. I'd like to shake the hand of that good samaritan who beat the shit out of that fucking camera.

Im sorry, where did you get the idea that this helped keep intersections safe? Keeping intersections safe is actually fairly trivial without any sort of RLC or punishment. All you need to do, which many places already have done, is slightly increase the length of yellow lights, and delay the green transition on the other traffic lane, so that there is a period of 1-2 seconds where all sides are red; and thus cars that may have been late past the line, have time to make it through.

Sure it may not play into some people's fetish for punishment and strict rules enforcement, but, it does a great job of increasing safety.

And in light of that, when cities get caught reducing the yellow light time at lights, which is less safe and increases the chances of an accident, then YES it is a money making scheme.

And once you've done all that, and you still have people running the red?
My city did all of the above, and now people run the red because they know the other side doesn't get the green right away, so it's "OK".

I once lived in a city in Ohio that did the "all red" thing long before cameras were around. Drivers often ran through red lights, to the point where traffic would just wait a few seconds into their green light before moving, just to be sure that the opposing traffic would actually stop. The worst intersections were the first to get cameras when they came out, and they helped. Once the lights were clearly being enforced 24/7, people actually stopped on time. It annoys me now that Ohio wants to ban the camer

I'm proud to live in a state that deemed these cameras unconstitutional a long time ago.

I also live in a state / metro where re-timing light changes is excessively utilized. Delays as long as 5 seconds are employed between one side's Red and the cross traffic's Green. Although the concept of a delay is one I think is beneficial I think that is going too far. 1-2 seconds *tops are enough to up the stats but any longer and we have people jumping the red on the front side, not the back side of the green. Si

I'm happy someone brought that up. Where I live they have the delay and it's great for safety but I still don't disagree with red light cams. The reason is that there's always that A-hole that will burn the red intentionally putting everybody's life in danger. I feel that guy should be punished and the cameras are a great way to do so.

FYI, last year I drove through the same 3 intersections with cameras over 400 times (twice a day) and never even came close of running the light yet according to the paper ove

There is already that delay. Drivers tend to take forever to get going when the light turns green. I am usually to the other side of the intersection before most cars start moving.

That is why I have to look both ways before going on green to avoid getting hit by runners. Where I live almost no one stops at stop signs anymore and most people drive right through right on red. Usually a few cars sneak through each red light at a busy intersection.

I'm in the UK where pretty much all lights get a three second yellow (approx) and there's a variable, but non zero, time when all the lights are red.

Drivers get used to this and, in London at least during busy periods, it's very common to have one or two cars cross after the lights have turned red (and that's when the average speed of the traffic probably isn't much more than 10mph so it's easy to stop)

Because cars do this, it's not at all uncommon for the junction to fail to clear before the other way goes

In the evenings, especially Friday and Saturday nights there are sloppy drivers that have many times nearly hit me because they ran red lights.

I'd like for those sloppy drivers to get tickets in the mail --- there aren't enough police.

I don't think automated speeding ticket cameras are a good idea, but I don't see the harm in red light cameras --- just stop and they aren't a problem. Now the yellow times in my city are very reasonable and I understand if some cities are cheating on yellow light times to induce *FALSE* and/or *DANGEROUS* situations to generate revenue. I'm just stating that I think red light cameras, if used correctly, can be helpful --- *IF* the local government isn't abusing them.

I agree. If you trust your Government to enforce the law without abusing it for the indefinite period of time after red light camera installation, then I believe them to be a useful measure which will help to prevent red light running.

I do not, however, trust my Government not to abuse the system (escalate fines for revenue), abuse the light (create accidents through shorter yellow light), and not allow appeal (allow light running rainy/unsafe conditions, which it represents the safest alternative). In th

Problem is people get paranoid around them (don't want to get fined!) and slam on their breaks the instant the light turns yellow - even if it's safer to pass through the intersection. People sloppy enough to run red lights are probably inebriated and will do so regardless of the fine, so while having the camera will punish them, it won't protect you from getting rammed in an intersection. Additionally though the cameras will increase the number of people who slam on the breaks in front of you, causing lots of rear end collisions.

The problem is that no one has interest in doing it right. As far as I am concerned, the camera-at-traffic-light was solved in the 90s, when I was at MIT. I worked on the project for a while, and I remember the problems that we faced (and solved). Even better, time has made every single one of them trivial, through better cameras, faster and cooler processing, and cheap reliable communication.

So, here is how to make traffic cameras that work and save lives:

1. Once yellow is displayed, monitor the speed of the first vehicle in each lane that should be stopping.2. Do not turn on the green (for any other lane) until every yellow (and later red) facing vehicle has initiated a deceleration that can bring to rest before the intersection.3. Start flashing the red early if you detect a car that appears to be going too fast to stop before entering the intersection, but too slow to to enter it before the red is scheduled to appear.4. Issue tickets to everyone entering the interception on red. As you don't delay the appearance of the red, this won't reduce the number of tickets.5. Send warnings to people who have delayed the green, but have still come to a stop, reminding them that emergency stops are wearing down their shocks, tires, and brakes.6. Send warnings to people who have crossed at flashing red, or speeding tickets if they did so by breaking the speed limit.

Note that none of this makes the green come earlier, or the red come later. You can still use an underlying, tested, proven reliable system to ensure that the new-fanged system does not give green to the wrong people at the same time.

This is going to save lives, and it was successfully testing in Boston last millennium. OK, so after a few weeks, the hardware went kaput, but that left the standard traffic light in place and there was no harm done. We lost interest. With today's tech, I could rebuild the system for one tenth of the price, and it would probably last a long longer.

A RLC near me gives tickets to drivers who make a right turn on red, if the cars fail to COMPLETELY stop COMPLETELY prior to the intersection painted lines. On a daily occurrence, I see several drivers get tickets because they came to a complete stop INCHES past the intersection painted lines. In no rational universe would a police officer ever give a ticket to any of these drivers; yet, the municipality is collecting several thousands of dollars each day due to such minor infractions.

As far as the speeding cameras, I would start by not making speeding a moving violation and change ticket to a speeding surcharge. You can go as fast as you want as long as you pay; that's the only way I would approve of speeding cameras..

Actually, that's the way they got around the laws to put stop light/speeding cameras up in New Orleans.

It is nothing more than a revenue collection device, as that you don't go to traffic court over these and no points or marks go against your driving record.

It shows that is nothing more than for revenue generation. When people were protesting them (they almost got taken down awhile back) the first thing our govt and police said, was "we'll be losing $X if we do this...oh, and it will also make things less safe". That is a true story.

Drivers will adapt. When they learn that there are 1-2 seconds during which all lights are red, passing a red light two seconds after it turned red will become normal.

Philipp

Says the 10 millionth person who's failed to actually look at the studies. Sorry, buddy, there's actual science that says you're wrong. What you have is a hypothesis. Guess what, it's an obvious one that's been tested and proven false over and over again.

Guess what else the studies show, all else being equal, adding a RLC to an intersection increases the number of accidents and injuries. Now is the time to go educate yourself and, if you're intellectually honest, change your mind.

Guess what else the studies show, all else being equal, adding a RLC to an intersection increases the number of accidents and injuries

Point to any study that shows this for which the increase in accidents and injuries cannot be attributed to other variables (such as the city reducing the yellow light timing, thus actively trying to use the RLC as a money-making scheme).

No they don't. One or two seconds of "all red" causes a permanent reduction in accidents. This is not a hypothetical new proposal, where we have to guess how drivers will react. It has been done for decades in many cities.

Another way to reduce accidents is to have a count-down timer next to the light. I have never seen these in America, but they are common in some other countries. The countdown commonly starts 30 seconds prior, while the light is still green, giving drivers plenty of time to either slow down or speed up enough to make the light with time to spare.

Another way to reduce accidents is to have a count-down timer next to the light. I have never seen these in America

If there's a countdown pedestrian signal and the intersection phase is controlled by the pedestrian movement (i.e., there's not so much traffic that the light has to stay greener for more time than it takes a pedestrian to get across), then you can use the pedestrian countdown as a green light countdown.

Most police i know don't like them because they take a job from a person.

As for the monitary scheme, you can see that in the debate in ohio's legislature. One side of the isle actually said banning them would deny cities of a significant source of income at a time the state is restricting funding to those cities. And i bet your first guess to the party affiliatation of that law maker would be wrong (Hint, the republicans in Ohio seem to be against them). In my home town, the concept of revenue certainly was

I'm for red light cameras IF combined with a countdown and a minimum 2.5 second yellow.

We have those in town and you always have plenty of warning since they start at 20 seconds from the time the light change to red.

Red light cameras in many cases increase the number of accidents at intersections- transforming them from Tbone's to front/rear accidents. That should reduce the fatalities and in some cases it has slightly but in others it hasn't. I guess it depends on the intersection.

Some legislatures assert that the person whose name is associated with the cars license is ultimately responsible for illegal operation of the vehicle. Such legislatures usually cancel the fine if you have reported the car stolen or will reassign it if you provide information on who actually drove the car.